A Season In Review (part 2)

Here is more of the season continued. Now you get to find out what happened in the rest of our pre-league games. Enjoy.

The rest of our pre-league games passed by quickly. We beat Hart High School, a first by an Los Angeles school in sixteen years. We were riding high going into our fifth week, and it seemed that nothing could bring us down. The coaches warned us not to lose focus and not to revel in the glory, but we didn’t listen. We played Dorsey High School in game five, and lost. But we knew that if we kept up and stayed focused we’d see them again in the play-offs for a little payback. Our loss left us with the drive to succeed during our league games.

Our first league game was against Chatsworth High School. The Chancellors had had a great pre-league season and spent the week blustering to the press and anyone who would listen that this would be the year that they would beat us. But we couldn’t be stopped. We needed this win to redeem ourselves. And we got it. From the kick-off, we had them beaten. We scored first and we scored often. They tried with all their might to stop us, but to no avail. The final score was us 42, them 3.

Our seventh game passed without much fanfare. El Camino High School offered up little resistance. It seemed as if they barely played at all. But that game was of little consequence, because every man on the team was looking forward to our Homecoming game the next week against our bitter rivals, Taft High School.

We spent the Eighth Week of the season getting ready for Homecoming. Many of our minds were on what wrist bands looked best with our uniforms and which side of our faces were our “good sides” so we knew which way to face the cameras. In short, our heads weren’t in the game, and we paid dearly for it. The game was close, but we played sloppily. They were too good to make the mistakes that we did. The crowd got rowdy and it seemed as if the whole world was rooting for us, but it was no help. We lost that night in front of thousands of fans. We learned our lesson about being focused the only way we knew how: the hard way. But we needed it; we needed to be tested to see if we truly had the stuff that champions are made of.

After the game, some cried, others fought, and the rest of us just quietly cursed T-A-F-T and swore that, as God as our witness, the next time we met Taft, the outcome would be different. That night we became more than just friends; we became teammates. No, we became something more,; we became brothers. We banded together that night, and held our heads up high. No matter our differences, we had one goal and we were now out for blood.